
Most Windows systems use principle partitions with this file system. This is the current preferred file system of Windows (beginning predominance circa Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000, and including Windows XP). Windows has no native support for this format, but third party tools such as MacDrive allow for limited read/write support on Windows systems. Mac OS X systems can also only boot from hard disks formatted in this system (as well as bootable optical media).

Mac OS X is capable of mounting these volumes for reading and writing, and has full capabilities to utilize them.


It is a journalled, relatively modern file system that supports POSIX permissions, and features at least limited automatic defragmenting of files. This is the principal file system of Mac OS X.
